On My Way To Nowhere
by Emri
Summary: We all have to make decisions, some are more important than others. This may just be the most important decision Quinn Fabray has ever made.


On My Way To Nowhere

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**A/N: This has been saved on my computer for a while and so I figured I would just post it and see what happens. Hope you enjoy...**

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"You can ask me."

Quinn spun around in the empty halls of McKinley high school to face the person who had just spoken to her but she would recognise the voice anywhere. She knew who it was before she even turned around.

"Rachel." Quinn breathed out gently. She couldn't help but be a little surprised because Rachel looked so normal and well...beautiful. The brunette had her long locks cascading carelessly down her back and was wearing a flowing, white cotton dress that sort of made her look like an angel.

After getting over the shock of Rachel's appearance, Quinn processed what the girl had said and responded with confusion marring her features, "What do you mean? What should I ask you?"

Rachel smiled indulgently and replied, "You can ask me the question that has been on your mind since you woke up here."

Rachel was still being incredibly vague and at any other time it would have frustrated Quinn to no end but at the moment the blonde felt as if she knew exactly what Rachel was talking about.

"How did I get here?"

Rachel nodded her acceptance of the question but answered, "That is a good question and it will receive its answer in time but the real question you should be asking is where is here?"

Quinn's eyebrows furrowed as she took in Rachel's weird amendment to her question and she found herself glancing around the hallway she was in again. It looked like a normal but random hallway in McKinley. It was empty and the whole atmosphere seemed to be filled with some sort of blue haze but when she swept her hand in front of her face nothing cleared.

"Its our high school." Quinn stated as if it were obvious and Rachel just cocked her head and didn't respond for a few seconds.

"Will you take a walk with me Quinn?" The brunette finally asked, offering her hand for Quinn to take. Quinn was fast getting frustrated with Rachel being so illusive but she couldn't help but feel like something was off and that Rachel knew something about it.

For that reason she decided to follow Rachel but she didn't take the offered hand which didn't seem to offend the other girl in the slightest.

"Where are we going Rachel?" Quinn asked as they walked side by side down a never ending series of hallways all of which matched each other for every detail.

"We have a few things to discuss and then you'll have a decision to make." Rachel said rather ambiguously and without making eye contact.

Quinn had always had a short temper and she felt it reach boiling point as she turned and tried to push Rachel into a locker so that she could force some straight answers out of her.

The problem was that her hands just went straight through as well as the rest of her body as she was the one who fell against the lockers. Finding herself unable to move from the shock of what had happened and vaguely thinking that she could now make a dirty joke about being inside Rachel Berry that even Puck would be proud of, Quinn stayed pressed against the locker.

"I think that is a joke worthy of Noah's standards." Rachel said with a small amused smile on her face.

Quinn's eyes widened and she practically shouted, "How the hell did you know what I just thought?" Her voice gave away her fear as it echoed down the empty hallways.

Rachel looked sympathetic as she offered a now solid hand to pull Quinn to her feet and explained, "I am a manifestation of your subconscious Quinn. I was only immaterial when you wanted no physical contact with me. You acted without thinking when you tried to push me and so I was not made solid in time."

Quinn tried to embrace all of this new information but struggled a little because it really threw the question of where she was into the air. Her mind drifted towards Rachel's appearance again as the new information led her to realise that Rachel looked so beautiful because...

"...because this is how you see me in your mind." Rachel finished Quinn's thought with a cheeky smirk that Quinn had never seen on the other girl's face before. Everything within the blonde froze at that and the past few month's worth of repressed feelings she had had since the start of the summer flew to the front of her mind. Unable to deal with the light being shed on those thoughts, Quinn pushed them away and Rachel was kind enough to let it go.

"So I guess the answer to where we are is that...we're in my mind?" Quinn phrased it as a question and Rachel nodded and beamed at her the way a teacher would for a three year old who just recited the alphabet correctly. Quinn ignored the patronising behaviour and they simultaneously started walking again.

"My other question was how did I get here but I guess I'm just sleeping right?"

"Yes Quinn you are asleep in a sense but the question of how you got here still needs to be answered." Rachel said in a lofty voice and Quinn noticed that they finally seemed to make it to a classroom.

The door was open on an English classroom that didn't belong to McKinley high school but fit seamlessly into the building. She could remember the room so well, it was the stage of so many of her nightmares and she guessed that it was probably why the room was so detailed. She had spent many a tear filled day and night in that room during middle school.

At that thought the sound of tears filled the room and Quinn looked to Rachel who was just staring sadly at something behind Quinn. The cheerleader spun around and saw the back of a brunette head that was presumably making the sobbing noises. At first she thought it was Rachel but she quickly realised that the girl was too large and the hair was too bushy to resemble the girl stood beside her.

Realisation dawned rather quickly and the blonde gasped lightly in recognition only seconds before the girl turned around. A chill ran through Quinn as she thought that a twelve year old version of herself was looking right at her but when more voices filled the room she noticed that Rachel and the two versions of herself were no longer alone.

Entering in through the door which was still wide open were three kids of Lucy's age, all of whom automatically spotted the little brunette and it was then that Quinn realised that what she was seeing was a memory and not a nightmare.

"Oh what is Lucy Caboosey doing in here crying like a loser for?" One blonde girl taunted mercilessly and Quinn found herself being automatically drawn back into the mind frame of her twelve year old self. If not for her head cheerleader self control Quinn thought she probably would have been cowering in on herself like Lucy was at the moment.

"Don't you have any friends to comfort you? Of course you don't because who would want to spend time with a loser like you?" A brunette boy asked with a sneer marring his handsome face. Lucy let off a particularly loud sob that Quinn matched as she could feel the pain of that moment almost as if she was the twelve year old girl experiencing that rejection and loneliness.

Finally a brunette girl that looked so like the boy that they were clearly related delivered the last insult, "You're going to die alone." With those parting words they all left with their loud laughter cutting through the air.

Quinn struggled to regain her breath as Lucy decided that she had clearly had enough of crying in school and ran out of the room, running straight through Quinn. The cheerleader felt her breathe hitch at the contact but soon the younger brunette was gone and Quinn looked at Rachel for answers she wasn't sure the other girl would give.

"This is a part of the answer Quinn. How did you get here? Well your journey started here. As Lucy in middle school. The girl who was bullied, who hated herself and had no self esteem." Quinn seemed to be paying no attention to her, she was just staring at where her younger self had been sat but Rachel pressed forward anyway.

"A girl who was so hurt in such a short space of time because she didn't even have her parents there to tell her that what the bullies were saying was a lie." Rachel sighed and looked at the taller girl with sympathy as she rested a palm against her cheek and felt moisture beneath her finger tips that made her frown a little bit more. The action resulted in drawing Quinn's attention towards Rachel and they just looked at each other for a few moments with Quinn having no strength to pull away.

"But here's the kicker Rachel." Quinn started as she let the tears prickle at her eyes once more, "Nothing those kids said were lies. I didn't have any friends and I was a loser. Even now they are probably right that I will die alone because I push people away. No matter how much I change myself those things will always be true about me."

Quinn went to push past Rachel to run out of the room but found a solid hand gripping onto her arm, preventing her from escaping. "Rach please..." Quinn begged in a small voice but she wasn't sure what she was asking for. To be let go or for the other girl to take the pain away? She wasn't sure but what she did know is that reliving that memory had brought up every painful feeling and every weakness she had felt as Lucy Fabray and it was getting to her.

"You are not going to die alone Quinn and you have more friends than you know, you just have to stop pushing people away." Rachel advised as she gently led Quinn by the elbow into the hallway and the doorway to the room they had just been in faded away behind them.

"What was the point of that Rachel?" Quinn asked in a steady voice that did not betray the shakiness she felt inside.

"It was the start." Rachel said as if her words were giving some obvious answer. When the brunette was met with only a raised eyebrow she further explained, "You asked how you got here and what you saw in that room was the first step you took to get to this final destination." Rachel gestured all around them and Quinn got the feeling that there was a lot that she didn't know but also had the distinct notion that she should let whatever was happening simply play out.

"What was the next step?" Quinn asked looking around the empty hallway as if expecting another door to appear out of nowhere and almost regretting whatever Rachel would say next.

But a door didn't appear this time and Rachel didn't say anything. Quinn wasn't kept waiting long however as she felt an ice cold blast rush through the entirety of her body and a mass of discoloured argyle and brown hair ran _through_ her.

Obviously she knew who it was but it was a little surreal to see Rachel stood across from her and also running into the bathroom down the hall at the same time. The identity of the person was further clarified when a younger looking Quinn and Santana came strolling down the hall in the wake of the other girl, hurling insults and laughing with each other.

Quinn felt an increasingly familiar stab of regret attack her heart and for a second she almost had the urge to cover the younger Quinn's mouth just to stop the slew of hurtful words flooding from her lips. Her next urge was to cover Rachel's ears but realised it would be a fruitless endeavour as Rachel was a figment of her imagination.

"It wasn't just me you hurt though." Rachel stated, drawing Quinn's attention from the two cheerleader's now walking into the bathroom that young Rachel was occupying.

All of a sudden the hallway was filled with dozens of people all of whom would be described as nerds or unpopular in some way and almost simultaneously slushies flew into each of their faces. The pain of such a large group of people all at once caused regret to bubble up like never before in Quinn and she knew it was all her fault.

"I get it Rachel, I'm a bitch just make it stop!" Quinn demanded as she resorted to covering her eyes to block out the images. That amount of mass pain was hard to witness.

When she opened her eyes again the hallway was empty and she was left alone with Rachel who looked at her with pity but none of the malice that Quinn believed she deserved.

"You remember every single slushie you ordered. These memories come from you and they haunt you because you remember best of all the looks of pain and humiliation on their faces. That doesn't seem like something a cold hearted bitch would do." Rachel stated and Quinn found herself reeling at the fact she had heard Rachel Berry swear before she actually absorbed the words she had said.

The blonde could find no response and so let Rachel lead her down the hallway as she continued her little story.

"When you could no longer stand to be Lucy, you became Quinn, the exact type of person Lucy hated the most. You did it to protect yourself but you were still insecure so this happened..." Rachel trailed off as they turned a corner and they were in Puck's bedroom seemingly out of nowhere.

Quinn needed only a second of the visual to know what she was seeing and quickly turned away having tried very hard to repress that memory.

"I debated whether or not to show you this moment or when you gave birth but I decided to stick with the presumably more pleasurable end of the nine months." Rachel stated as she watched the two attractive people led on the bed start to have sex. She subconsciously turned her head to the side as she viewed the scene and Quinn slapped her on the arm when she realised the brunette was still looking.

"I'd have rather seen the birth." Quinn replied and when Rachel appeared to be about to acquiesce to the request, Quinn quickly put a hand on her shoulder to stop her to which the smaller girl pouted. Quinn was starting to get really unsure as to why she had made Rachel so cute in her mind and the blonde was fairly sure that the hemline of the white dress was slowing getting shorter by a centimetre every few minutes.

Rachel was looked down at her own hemline as well, clearly being a part of Quinn's thoughts and seemed to agree that it was getting shorter with it reaching about mid thigh at the moment. Rachel opened her mouth to comment on it but Quinn cut her off with a simple, "Don't."

Rachel nodded but they both noticed when it raised another centimetre and Quinn blushed.

"So what's next?" Quinn asked to try to distract from the current situation.

Rachel didn't lead them anywhere but they stood where they were with the faint sound of intercourse as background noise. "The birth of your daughter was important for many reasons Quinn but the most important reason was that it softened you. It made you into a better person. A person that was willing to try to make amends, a person that was willing to try to be my friend."

Suddenly they were stood in front of the Principal Figgins' office and could see a Rachel and Quinn sat in the waiting room that were nearly identical to their current selves.

Quinn really didn't need to watch this memory, every detail of the encounter had been etched into her brain but it played on regardless.

"So we're kind of friends now huh?" A smiling Rachel asked and both Quinn's returned that smile.

"Kind of." The slightly younger Quinn affirmed.

The memory just paused in the moment with the two girls smiling at each other as they had clearly seen all they needed for Rachel to make her point.

"We had our moments before this of course but this was the first time we mutually admitted our friendship. It was why this happened..." Rachel trailed off as she walked down the hallway and held her arm out in the direction of the girls bathroom, signalling for Quinn to go first.

Quinn briefly thought about how weird it was that her and Rachel had had such an important conversation in a bathroom for some reason.

"Its kind of our thing." Rachel stated in response to her thought and Quinn couldn't argue because Rachel was a figment of her imagination and therefore the statement had come from Quinn's mind. Instead she led the way into the bathroom.

Once again a very similar looking Quinn and Rachel stood in front of them, facing each other. Quinn watched as Rachel announced that she was marrying Finn and whilst she herself tried to discourage the brunette but to no avail. She saw the pain on her face that the younger version of Rachel seemed oblivious to.

"Why can you never see it Rachel?" Quinn asked her guide with anguish in her voice.

"Quinn..." Rachel started but was cut off.

"Why can't you see that I'm in love with you?" Quinn whispered as she got close to the younger Rachel in the memory that was still talking to the younger version of herself. Quinn raised her hand to graze the cheek of the Rachel in the memory but was disappointed when her hand sank right through the tan flesh.

"She is just a memory Quinn, you can't make her real." The older version of Rachel behind her explained.

Quinn's shoulders sagged and she walked out of the bathroom. By the time Rachel followed, Quinn had sunk down the wall outside the bathroom and was sitting with her head in her hands.

"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take Rachel, can you please just tell me why I'm here?" Quinn pleaded.

Rachel sank down to the ground next to her with pitiful eyes and said gently, "I know this is painful but we are close now. You will have to make a decision very soon but you need to see all of this first. You need to see how far you've come...and what you have to lose."

Quinn was still and silent for a few moments then finally nodded her agreement to continue. However, she made no move to get off the floor so Rachel waved her arm and yet another version of Quinn and Rachel walked down the hallway.

"You seem to be in a lot of these memories Berry." Quinn stated to distract from the fact that she was about to watch another moment where her hopes were dashed and her heart was broken.

"That's because I'm important to you Quinn, I mean you did chose me to be your guide." Rachel stated matter of factly with a little bit of her ego showing through.

"You love it." Rachel replied in regards to her ego.

"Yeah, I do." Quinn murmured sadly because what was playing out before them at the moment was proof that Rachel did not feel the same way about Quinn as Quinn did about her.

"When you were singing that song you were singing it to Finn and only Finn right?" Quinn asked. In the blonde's mind she was begging and Rachel's hesitance to answer started to raise her hopes only to have them dashed in the nod of a head.

Quinn couldn't watch any more and she found that the two girls disappeared with her desire for them to.

"This is your mind Quinn, you have the control here." Rachel said as if it were obvious then continued, "So you agreed to be my bridesmaid even though it tore up your soul a little to do it."

"I just had to be there when you got married so that I could see with my own two eyes that I had to give up hope of you ever loving me." Quinn said leaning her head back against the wall behind her in defeat.

"You're a bit of a masochist you know?" Rachel asked rhetorically and Quinn gave a wry smile.

"I'm paying for my crimes." Quinn explained simply.

"You know she has forgiven you, you believe that so why let yourself continue to suffer?" Rachel asked, not knowing the answer as Quinn herself had not even figured it out yet.

Quinn just shook her head slowly indicating that she didn't know.

They sat in silence for a long while just staring at the lockers opposite them until the blue haze started to get thicker.

"Its time Quinn." Rachel said, standing up and reaching down a hand to help Quinn up.

Quinn took the offered hand and when they were both on their feet she asked, "Time for what?"

"Time for you to make that decision." Rachel said very vaguely.

They walked down a hallway until they reached where the choir room was in the real geography of the school. They walked in and sat down.

"All of these moments led to one thing." Rachel explained, turning in her chair to look directly at Quinn. "They led to you driving to my wedding, late and distracted."

Quinn's memories of just before she woke up in the school were starting to come back to her piece by piece and she suddenly heard the loud blaring of a car horn. Her head twisted in every direction to find the source of the noise but she couldn't find anything that could have made that noise.

"You ran a stop sign and a truck hit the side of your car." Rachel was telling the story in little bits as all of Quinn's memory came flooding back and she closed her eyes to deal with the intensity of her remembered pain no matter how brief it was.

"I'm dead." Quinn finally managed to say. When she opened her eyes the blue haze had started to collect just in front of the piano and was starting to swirl and grow.

"Not yet."

Quinn stood up and started to take a few steps towards what she could only describe as a portal. It was a rich electric blue and she felt incredibly drawn to it as though on the other side was something that could help her, that would make things better.

"This is your decision Quinn and its a simple one though its not one that many people get to make. You very lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it because you get to chose...life or death?"

Rachel's voice was becoming distant, Quinn had barely focused on what she had just said but had caught the gist of it. She took a few more slow steps towards the portal.

"I don't know what's on the other side of the portal but I can tell you one thing that isn't and that's me. The real me that is out there in the real world." Rachel informed Quinn calmly.

That made Quinn stop and pay attention and she even turned back around. Rachel was still sitting on her chair but had turned to face Quinn.

"What does it matter, the real Rachel is probably married by now. I've lost my chance." Quinn said sadly as tears began to pool in her eyes.

"Quinn if you can hear me you need to wake up." Rachel's voice echoed through the room loud and clear and filled with pain. Quinn's head shot up to look at Rachel but she wasn't speaking though she did have a smirk on her face.

"Quinn, please wake up. I can't lose you. Please don't give up I...I love you." The voice said.

"Is that...?" Quinn trailed off.

"The real me. She's talking to you Quinn though you are in a coma." Rachel informed the awestruck blonde.

"But you said...she said...she loves me!" Quinn smile got wider and wider and she started to walk away from the portal which started to fade. The mist started to clear as Quinn ran out of the door to the choir room, fully intending to run to the main school doors. She didn't know why but she knew that if she could just leave the school she knew that everything would be OK. The doors loomed up before her and she stopped just a few paces short.

"You made a difficult choice Quinn but I have a feeling you chose well just don't waste your chance this time." The Rachel that had been her guide advised then added, "And I hope to never see you here again."

"I don't plan on it." Quinn replied then ran straight through the closed doors and into a blinding light.

When she opened her eyes she was in a brightly lit hospital room with Rachel crying into her sheets. Quinn flexed her fingers and toes slightly and was pleased to find that they still worked but her movements made Rachel's head snap up.

Their eyes met and they just stared at each other for a few long moments before Rachel dived in to kiss the bruised and broken blonde on the bed. It was only a gentle moving of the lips and it only lasted for a few seconds before Rachel pulled back.

"Quinn?" Rachel said almost as if she wasn't sure that everything that was happening wasn't simply a dream.

"I heard you Rachel." Realisation and a little disbelief rose up on Rachel's face. "You pulled me back, I was about to..." Quinn didn't need to finish for Rachel to understand and she gasped and drew a hand to her mouth as if to contain any more sobs.

That was when Quinn decided to take her own advice, which had been dispensed via an imaginary Rachel Berry, to not waste her chance.

"I love you too." Quinn took her chance and was pleased when Rachel threw herself into Quinn's arms. It hurt, Quinn was fairly sure she may have some broken ribs that Rachel was putting pressure on but she didn't care because she had the girl of her dreams in her arms.

"You did hear me." Rachel stated and Quinn could hear the smile in her voice but she had to know something.

"What about Finn?" Quinn asked and Rachel pulled back slowly.

"It takes something like this happening to know what you truly want in life Quinn. I didn't even know about your accident but I still didn't go through with the wedding. I was waiting for you and we ran out of time." Rachel then looked down sheepishly for a moment before admitting, "Honestly I was kind of hoping that you would come in and object to the wedding."

"I wouldn't have." Quinn responded quietly.

"You wouldn't have what?" Rachel asked in confusion.

"I wouldn't have objected at your wedding. I would have stood there and watched as you got married to the wrong person because I thought he made you happy." Quinn answered.

"He used to but over this week I've had a lot of chance to think and he has acted in such an appalling manner. I broke up with him three days ago." She let the information sink in and was pleased with the smile that erupted on Quinn's face at the news.

"You see a little while ago there was this girl who told me that I was way too good for a place like Lima, Ohio and that I could do better than Finn Hudson. I didn't think I could do any better and so I stuck with him out of fear of being alone. I only just realised that the girl was actually offering herself as an alternative. You were offering weren't you?" Rachel started to get a little insecure at the end so Quinn held out her arms and Rachel climbed onto the bed next to her.

"Yes Rachel Barbara Berry I'm offering you everything I am which at the moment isn't much but..." Quinn was interrupted with a soft kiss and a small hand tangling in her hair until she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Everything you are is perfect for me Lucy Quinn Fabray and don't you ever think otherwise." Rachel scolded.

Quinn nodded and then after a while she asked, "Are we going to be OK?"

"Yeah, we're going to be fine."

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**A/N: Please tell me what you think...**


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